Francisco Cordero did all he could do to make the Red Sox on a minor-league contract, throwing eight scoreless innings with an 8/1 K/BB ratio this spring, but the 39-year-old longtime closer has been told that he won’t be on the Opening Day roster.

Alex Speier of WEEI.com reports that the Red Sox offered Cordero a spot in their Triple-A bullpen and he’s debating whether to accept while also shopping around for a big-league offer elsewhere.

Cordero sat out all of last season following shoulder surgery and pitched terribly for the Blue Jays and Astros in 2011, but he’s lost a bunch of weight and showed that he might have a little something left in the tank after saving 329 career games.

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What was the point of signing Cordero at all. He comes to spring training in the best shape of his career and pitches lights out and then you tell him there is no place on the roster for him. It sounds like the Red Sox were playing games with Cordero. They knew if all their relievers came back healthy that Cordero had no chance to make the club. Cordero was just an insurance policy. they should have been honest with him from the start.

What do they possibly owe this guy? Do you think that they wouldn’t have him on their MLB roster if a spot was warranted? In the handful of his appearances that I’ve seen this spring, he’s been entering the game in the 8th or 9th inning, facing prospects and roster fillers as opposed to major league calibre players. As we’ve all seen with the rash of injuries to pitchers this spring, having depth/insurance is a requirement. In addition, they know what they have in the players who did make the ‘pen and his last few years of production was not going to help his cause. Finally, the Sox did give him the opportunity to show his wares for other teams to view so if there is MLB roster interest he’ll have that option.

Baseball-Reference has a tool, albeit an inexact one, that measures the average quality of opponent that a player has faced in Spring Training, as a means of trying to interpret the quality of the stats they put up.

Bbref says Cordero has faced a 9.0 opponent rating (10 being Major League, 8 being AAA.)
Koji Uehara, to offer one example, has faced an 8.7.

They almost certainly were honest with him. These guys all have agents, they appraise depth situations of the teams making them minor league offers. It’s not like he got to camp in Fort Myers and was like “Aww damn, ya’ll already got relief pitchers? Shoot. Someone should have told me!”

He was terrible, and then had shoulder surgery. There probably weren’t many minor league offers. He took the Red Sox offer for some reason, whether because they promised to at least use him in big league games instead of minor league, or because he knew other guys on the club, or SOME reason.

But he got to pitch against big league players in big league games in front of big league scouts. This is how guys get jobs after their primes. Look at Aaron Harang and Chris Young, for example. Came in to one camp, didn’t make the club, but impressed some other team’s scouts.

I think it’s a shame he didn’t make the team, he did a whole lot better then Andrew Miller and Capuano. I can’t stand Andrew Miller he’s just awful and allows a lot of runs, as for Capuano he’s not great either but can be better then Miller.

Miller’s looked a lot better over the last two years. He’s never gonna have the shaprest control (4.7 BB/9 over last two years), but he’s put up some very sexy strikeout numbers (12.5 K/9 over his last 71 innings). I think he’s the best lefty in the Sox bullpen. He is coming off a pretty significant injury though

On the other end of the spectrum, Jason Bartlett made the Twins roster as a backup outfielder even though he batted .078 this spring and has exactly 1 career inning as anything other than a shortstop (2nd base in 2004)